Will Instagram Be The Next Site to Ban Thinspiration and Pro-Anorexic Content?

Since being banned from Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest, thinspiration has found a new home: Instagram. We wish we could say we were surprised…

According to the Huffington Post, a search for the tag “thinspo” on Statigram (a site that allows users to search trends and tagged Instagram photos), yields over 30,000 Instagram images. Other tags such as “ana,” “thin,” and “thinspiration” are equally popular with photos ranging in the thousands. Even more scary/bizarre, tags like “hipbones,” and “thighgap,” two areas that thethinspo community seems particularly focused on, are becoming more and more prevalent.

Currently, Instagram’s community guidelines do not specifically disallow self-harm images and content. They read as follows:

“Remember that our community is a diverse one, and that your photos are visible to people as young as 13 years old. While we respect the artistic integrity of photos, we have to keep our product and the photos within it in line with our App Store’s rating for nudity and mature content.”

Obviously, as the broader internet community becomes more and more aware of the proliferation of thinspiration and pro-anorexic content on Instragram, the micro-blogging site will probably have to update their terms of use. But, as with Tumblr and Pinterest, monitoring the millions of users to make sure content consistently falls within the parameters of what’s “okay,” and what’s seriously messed up, will be a huge challenge. And, what’s even more depressing, these people will more than likely just find a new micro-blogging site of choice, to continue contributing to the pro-ana community.

What do you think should be done to decrease the amount of thinspo and pro-ana sites online?